Contemporary classical CDs show some accessibility

The new music ensemble eighth blackbird has recorded works by Ades, Glass, Hartke and others. PHOTO BY DAVE KOTINSKY/GETTY IMAGES

The contemporary classical sextet strictly known in lowercase form, eighth blackbird, is otherwise an easygoing bunch, out to make new music friendly. This spunky young American ensemble – described in the liner notes as comprised of "four foodies, three beer snobs and one exercise junkie," regular folks – has been turning out recordings for Cedille the last few years (two have won Grammys) and its latest, "Meanwhile," nominated for a Grammy, is a typically eclectic and energetic affair. One of the things that makes eighth blackbird so attractive is simply the instruments it employs – flutes, clarinets, violin and viola, cello, piano and percussion, a nice balance of clang and euphony, bright and veiled, rhythmic and melodic. They make beautiful sounds together.

The pieces on "Meanwhile" are more and less easily approached by the intrepid listener, but, interestingly enough, their titles are a big help. Missy Mazzoli's "Still Life With Avalanche" does what it says, the music bumping along merrily and almost mindlessly until it is interrupted by a kind of buzzing stasis – the composer informs us she heard about the death of a cousin while writing it. Philip Glass' early "Music in Similar Motion" (1969) is also just that, a single, repeating, undulating line taken out for a good walk, gradually switching course as it goes. Stephen Hartke's "Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays" wins the prize for titles. The said puppets are Asian, from Japan to Java, and the little pieces in the suite evoke their movements and ceremonies, part "Petrushka," part Lou Harrison, part gamelan, but the title has done half the work, pointing the listener's ears in the right direction.

Two of the most complicated pieces – Philippe Hurel's bristling "...á mesure" and Thomas Adés' "Catch" – fascinate most, though. They're put together like clocks. Adés' early (1991) quartet, for clarinet and piano trio, is particularly enthralling. The music at first seems merely scattershot and every-which-way, but pay attention: It is so beautifully and intricately scored that the dots connect into lines, creating an ethereal picture. It doesn't hurt that eighth blackbird plays everything on the album with ease and élan.

Bach

Violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra have released another concept album on Nonesuch. It's called "The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould" and is devoted to new orchestrations of Bach's keyboard works and a couple of other new Bach-inspired pieces. If the album seems more a tribute to Bach than Gould, it features music closely associated with the pianist (there are two versions of the Aria from the "Goldberg Variations," with Gould heard on tape in one of them) and enough otherworldly playing to bring Gould to mind.

In the end, I found it admirable but rather tedious. These orchestrations can be thought of as anti-Stokowski; instead of beefing Bach up they space him out, turn him ghostly and sometimes skeletal. Tempos are haltingly slow and silences are meant to be pregnant, but after a while I wanted some meat, not air. Interestingly, some of the more straightforward items – Raminta Serksnyte's arrangement of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor from "The Well-Tempered Clavier" for flute, oboe, harpsichord and string orchestra; Leonid Desyatnikov's of the Sarabande from Partita No. 6 for solo violin, two violins, two viola and two cellos – are the most satisfying. Victoria Vita Poleva's arrangement of the Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp minor from the WTC takes the cake, with its solo violin, harpsichord, marimba, vibraphone and string orchestra separating the strands of Bach's counterpoint and sending them aloft even better than Bach's original.

Elsewhere, the arrangements tend to the type that would serve nicely to keep your mind afloat in a sensory deprivation tank. It's all pretty, but also rather precious. The arrangement by Victor Kissine of the Aria from the "Goldberg Variations," for solo violin, crotales, audio tape (Gould, in his glacial second recording of the work) and string orchestra is representative. You want Spike Jones to show up, pistol in hand, or I did. The two original works – Valentin Silvestrov's "Dedication to J.S.B" and Giya Kancheli's "Bridges to Bach" – are cut from the same cloth. To be fair, all of these pieces, taken individually, would work in the proper context, as sigh-inducing encores, for instance. Taken together, they wear thin.

Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen's Violin Concerto, which won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2012, has arrived in a recording (Deutsche Grammophon) led by the composer and featuring Leila Josefowicz, the violinist who inspired the work. Salonen wrote it at the end of his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic – the last movement is entitled "Adieu" – and says that it contains "a strong internal, private narrative." I don't know what that private narrative is, but as a listener, it is easy to sense some sort of storyline here, with the violinist as protagonist and the orchestra the world the protagonist inhabits.

Once an ultra-modernist of the European stripe, Salonen has taken a more traditional turn in his music in the last 15 years, at once more direct and sensory. Abstraction has been replaced by expression and atmosphere, by drive and even showmanship. He likes the orchestra as an ensemble and enjoys showing what it can do, how it can leap and swirl and explode. Similarly, the solo violin part in the Violin Concerto is written for a dazzling virtuoso who can also ruminate poetically. In other words, the piece doesn't seem to mind if it also entertains you, if it contains sounds that please, caress, and wow the ear of the average listener. It's hard not to like. Josefowicz gives a gung-ho performance and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, while not as gritty as Salonen's L.A. Phil, handles the whiz bang capably.

Salonen's "Nyx," his first purely orchestral piece since 2005, fills up the disc wonderfully. It takes as its inspiration a "shadowy figure" in Greek mythology, but that doesn't get you very far. It's really quite a ride with colossal effects, a chase, delicate solos, starry skies, soaring themes and sections that evoke the dense Romantic counterpoint of Strauss and Mahler. It's hard to believe the gentle Finn could unleash such a thing. It is, in a word, fun.

The new music ensemble eighth blackbird has recorded works by Ades, Glass, Hartke and others. PHOTO BY DAVE KOTINSKY/GETTY IMAGES
The recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen's new works includes his Grawemeyer-winning Violin Concerto. ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ, GETTY IMAGES
The eighth blackbird ensemble records for the Cedille label. CEDILLE
Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica ensemble have recorded modern arrangements of Bach. NONESUCH
Esa-Pekka Salonen's latest disc for Deutsche Grammophon features the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and violinist Leila Josefowicz. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

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